Into the Woods…

These words were written by Stephen Sondheim in his 1986 musical adapted from a book written by James Lapine. The story surrounded several familiar fairy tales and their life lessons and fabled outcomes that all linked back to the underlying story about the Baker and his wife’s dream to have a family.  Last week my adventures Into the woods on the Eastern Shore included much less music and dance, with the exception of the animated myriad of movements I went through to make sure I had removed a number of ticks trying to find their way to my bloodstream. Normally and by personal rule I rarely consider ventures in the woods in late spring and early summer. Never the less, the job of a land broker calls sometimes and we are forced to step up and walk some property boundaries under less than optimal conditions.  So we load up with bug spray and off we go, Into the Woods…

For some reason while walking that boundary line this musical melody would not leave my thoughts and as the client and I progressed through briars and underbrush, I had my own music to listen to even without Pandora or my iPod.

The land we walked was a combination of forest plantation and bottom land hardwood.  The bottom land offers a number of vernal pools and wetland habitat and with the wet spring this year the wetlands are brimming and the frogs worked hard to drown out the Sondheim musical going on in my mind.

Another striking part of the morning walk besides the frogs was the soft filtered morning light coming through the tree tops onto the forest floor.  The light was often interrupted with darting song birds as they discussed the day to come.  The sound of the song birds was so varied with many different calls, I could hardly tell the number of different species I was hearing.  In the interest of full disclosure, I have never done well focusing on the wide array of song bird calls and while I have had more than one opportunity to walk with high level birding experts I failed to really pick up the ability to tease out song bird calls.  The extent of my bird calling expertise remains between knowing the difference between a duck call and a goose call.  Regardless of my short comings in birding, the birds as well as the frogs were quite enjoyable that morning as they welcomed us to their woodland.

The property being considered by my client is one of a portfolio of timber lands I am currently representing on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.  There are more than 5000 acres available in this offering and I am looking forward to walking and exploring each of these unique woodland properties with my clients as we work to find each of them the perfect land tract.

Although that morning it seemed a wildly appropriate background to the song birds and frogs, perhaps my only hope is that my range of musical selections will increase from Sondheim musicals to some other genre for my next walk Into the Woods…